The present invention relates generally to performing a search based on media content, and more particularly, to performing a search based on a snapshot image captured from media content.
Image-based search systems can be utilized to perform a search using an image that contains features relevant to the search. A search system may analyze an image received from a user to recognize and identify features in the image. To identify the features, the search system may use patterns in the search image to locate other images that exhibit similar patterns. When an image with a suitable level of pattern similarity is found, the search system uses known information for the image to identify the similar feature in the search image. The identified feature is then presented to the user.
Image matching systems may often include a large number of images and information that can be used to find matches for search image features. The feature matching algorithm can be slowed by the number of images available as each image is compared individually to the search image. Identifying features contained in search images may include comparing the features with many potential matching images, and the search system may require a large amount of memory and/or time to perform the search. If images with very similar features are available, the search system may have difficulty selecting one image as a match and may return a false match containing features that are very similar but not the same as features in the search image. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an image-based search system that is capable of performing an efficient search based on an image captured from media content.